The Fires of Coventry

by Rick Shelley

  Sheffield transmitted the order for Q-space insertion. Hull executed it simultaneously with the rest of the battle group. For the next three and one half minutes, HMS Hull was effectively alone in a bubble universe of its own, separated from the rest of creation by the distortions forced on the fabric of space-time by its Nilssen generators. Initially, the bubble was just a little larger than the long dimension of the ship. The navigational computers determined the direction and amount of pressure that the ship had to “exert on the bubble to exit Q-space at the proper location. The generators then reversed the polarity of the Nilssen field and the ship emerged above Coventry. After that, Ian was far too busy to even recall the word confusion.

  The battle group did not emerge in formation. The need to gather intelligence quickly, as much as the fear of disaster, had convinced Admiral Greene to order a wide dispersal so that there would immediately be video available of all of the planet’s land areas. None of the ships emerged from Q-space more than 12,000 miles above the surface. Two of the frigates came in only 400 miles above sea level, accelerating to attack speed, aiming for the horizon in front of them—the line dividing space from atmosphere rather than the ground horizon—ready to make quick passes as their cameras and other sensors took in every available bit of data, both from the ground and from space around them. In addition, they also had to locate all enemy vessels currently in the system.

  It was entirely chance that put all of the Commonwealth ships into positions where none of the Federation ships could strike at them immediately. In the first forty-five seconds, the battle group spotted four Federation troop ships, three of them the Cutter-class ships that each held one battalion of ground troops and the other a Beamer-class ship of approximately the capacity of Victoria. There were also three Federation frigates visible.

  “No battlecruisers or dreadnoughts?” Ian asked himself. It was too good to believe. “Almost two regiments of soldiers and only three frigates to protect them and the troop ships?” That meant no fighters, no air cover for the Feddie soldiers, no long-range defenses for any of the ships. Louder, Ian said, “CIC, I want another sweep for capital ships. Check with the rest of the fleet as well. There have to be more Feddie ships around than we’re seeing.” The Combat Intelligence Center was deep inside Hull, and linked to CICs on each of the other ships.

  “We’re looking,” came the immediate reply. “There is nothing else within range of our sensors. We are starting to get video from the surface, sir.”

  “Give me the feed on my number two and three monitors,” Ian instructed. He turned his attention to those screens. The video was being relayed from the two frigates that had come out of Q-space closest to the surface. Their cameras had targeted The Dales and Coventry City. Little detail was visible in the raw video—the resolution was only enough to show objects that were at least eight feet in diameter—but that was enough to show the large number of fires, and the larger areas that had already been burned out, leaving only ashes and scorched remains.

  Hundreds of fires, Ian thought, shocked at the extent, even in what was visible in the first passes. What are they doing?

  The Federation frigates were leaving their parking orbits, accelerating toward the nearest Commonwealth vessels. The Federation troop ships started accelerating away from the planet, preparatory—Ian guessed—to jumping into Q-space. Escape was the only sane alternative for transports that were not adequately protected.

  It took ten minutes for Admiral Greene’s staff to gather enough information to decide which of the scenarios that the operations staff had concocted they would recommend. CIC was coordinating the response to the Federation frigates. Those were outnumbered, outgunned. Sheffield launched its Spacehawk fighters. Sheffield and Hull both launched missiles toward the enemy frigates. The Commonwealth frigates were also maneuvering to close with the enemy ships. The transports were allowed to flee, even though they might take news of the Commonwealth battle group back to the Federation capital on Union.

  “We take care of the folks on Coventry,” Admiral Greene said when CIC asked about the transports. “That’s our mission. Transports only make worthwhile targets if they’re loaded.”

  Watching video of the fires caused him to grit his teeth. After a few minutes, his jaw began to hurt. He had to consciously relax, and that was not easy.

  “If those transports represent the entire Federation force on the surface, they must be spread awfully thin,” came the estimate from CIC. A dozen satellites had already been launched to provide continuous surveillance of the populated areas, but it would be some time before they could start returning useful information—if they survived; those satellites would likely be targeted by the Federation frigates as soon as they could get around to them. “It appears as if they have units in or near almost every concentration of people on the planet.”

  Greene shook his head, a minute gesture that was only noticeable to those few officers who happened to be looking directly at him. What kind of lunacy? … He cleared his throat.

  “We’ll have to leave some areas to them for now,” he said, holding open his link to CIC. “For our initial landings, we’ll try to deal with whatever is going on around the largest cities. I don’t want any units smaller than battalion size split off until we’ve got a better idea of what we’re up against.”

  “That limits our options, sir,” the officer in CIC said.

  “Of course it limits our options!” Greene snapped. “That’s the entire purpose of gathering intelligence, so we can limit our options to the best course available.” He had raised his voice and come half out of his seat, his hands gripping the arms of the chair. He was afraid that his hands would be seen to tremble if he let go too soon.

  “Sorry about that, Carl,” he said, addressing the CIC man. “We’ll hold the heavy weapons battalion aboard ship until we figure out where they might be most effective. Put Third and Fourth Battalions, and the engineers, close enough to Coventry City to get into action quickly. Send First and Second to The Dales. I want them all on their way in thirty minutes. Have Hull move to give the landings fighter cover. I want the frigates to keep working at improving our intelligence. We might be outnumbered five to two on the ground. We’ll need any edge we can get to counter that.”

  “Air and heavy weapons ought to do it, sir, unless the Feddies have more ships lurking where we can’t see them.”

  Greene leaned back. “That’s possible. The Feddies might be sitting in Q-space and just coming out periodically to have a look-see. Keep me informed on what you’re doing, Carl. Remember, I want the first landers out in no more than thirty minutes.” He cut the audio on his link to CIC and paged the flag communications officer.

  “I want an MR ready to go to Buckingham in fifteen minutes. Program it to make the trip with only one Q-space transit, insertion as soon as it’s safely away from our ships, exit as close as practical to Buckingham.” Radio communications were limited by the speed of light—years between star systems. A message rocket—basically a Nilssen generator tied to a single rocket, with limited fuel and limited room for data—was faster. “I’ll get my message written now. Include all of the video and other telemetry we’ve picked up.” It’s time to bring the other regiment in, as fast as possible. We’ve got to stop the Feddies from destroying everything on Coventry.

  The men in the shuttles aboard Victoria had video to watch while they waited. Before orders came for their launch, each battalion received video on the areas to which they would be going. Officers and noncoms started to go over charts of those areas on their mapboards—specialized complinks that were flat, folded in thirds, and could provide a wealth of mapping information on demand.

  Geoffrey Dayle had pulled the faceplate down on his helmet as soon as the video started to show. That was his world burning. He didn’t want his mates to see the tears on his cheeks.

  7

  After the Baileys saw the first fires burning along Royal Oaks Pike, they had one more day of nervous waiting
before Federation soldiers came marching out Sherwood Pike. Reggie had been spending most of the daylight hours on the roof, watching. Even after sunset the evening before, he had hesitated before leaving his vigil, retiring inside only after the evening got too dark for him to see. All of that afternoon and evening the fires had moved farther out along Royal Oaks Pike. Some of the blazes died out after an hour or less. Others smouldered on into the night. Where Hawthorne was most heavily built-up the fires appeared fiercest, and lasted the longest.

  It was not long after dawn the next morning that Reggie thought that the fires had started to move out from the center of town along Sherwood Pike as well. He watched for a few minutes longer, then went downstairs.

  “Get everything ready,” he said after he told Ida about the newest fires. “I’ll move our packs out to the back of our land.”

  “What if they make us go the other way, out the pike?”

  “Then we’ll change direction as soon as we can. But I don’t think they’ll force us out along the road. We haven’t seen anyone come out from town. There haven’t been any floaters driving past, on the road or out in back.”

  Like nearly every family, except some in the old town, the Baileys had a ground-effect motorcar, but even at the start Reggie had given little thought to taking that along when, if, they were forced to leave. There had been considerable debate in the neighborhood. Some favored moving their cars into the woods, away from the houses, on the chance that they might be able to get to them when they had to. The argument that had carried the day, though, was that if all of the floaters were missing, the Feddies might go looking for them, and might destroy or confiscate everything that the families had managed to cache.

  “I’m scared, Reg, terrified.”

  He blinked, twice. “I’m a little scared myself. We’ll just have to make do. We’ll keep the kids safe and fed the best we can, whatever it takes.”

  “Will it be enough?” There were always the same questions, and the same vague, uncertain answers. Inertia, and an almost complete ignorance of what to expect, had kept them home. They worried about what the soldiers might do when they came, but they worried even more about abandoning their home to hide in the wild. They had made their preparations, but they would not leave until they were forced to. If they were forced to. Even now, they found the prospect hard to believe.

  “I’d better get back upstairs,” Reggie said. “Get the kids ready, and try to keep them calm.”

  “Keep them calm? I’m having trouble keeping myself calm.”

  “As long as we keep our heads, the kids will be okay.”

  Over the next four hours, Reggie detected a clear pattern in the start of new fires. Four to six would start at once. Then there would be a pause of as much as forty-five minutes before the next batch. Then, finally, not long before midday, Reggie saw men in camouflage dress, too far away for them to display any individuality, only briefly visible along the road in a narrow gap before Sherwood Pike curved slightly to the right. Trees blocked anything more.

  Ida brought up a tray with almost double the amount of food that Reggie normally ate for lunch.

  “It won’t be long now,” he said. “I don’t think it will be more than an hour and a half before they get here.”

  She stared at the nearest fires. The Baileys knew, at least casually, most of the people along Sherwood Pike for a mile in either direction. Already, friends and acquaintances were being burned out of their homes. Ida did not try to hide her tears now.

  “All along, part of me didn’t really believe that it was happening,” she said. “I thought, prayed, that it was all some bizarre nightmare, that I’d wake and find that it really wasn’t so.”

  “Where is our militia, the HDF?” Reggie asked. “Why haven’t they stopped this?” There was no bitterness, only sadness, and the knowledge that he had also tried to believe that none of this was really happening. That delusion was no longer possible.

  “You’d best eat while you can,” Ida said. “I’ve got to get back downstairs before the kids notice I’m gone.”

  Reggie scarcely looked at the food that he methodically lifted to his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. He forced himself to eat every bite, long past the point when he felt stuffed to capacity. Every meal had been like that since the invaders had come to Coventry. Laying in fat for the winter. He ate, and he drank the coffee and juice that Ida had brought, but he continued to watch the fires. The breeze shifted from west to north-northwest and brought the smell of fire with it, burning wood and memories.

  I had my chances to join the HDF, he reminded himself, as he had often since the start of the invasion. There had always been notices on the net asking people to do their patriotic duty and sign up for the Coventry Home Defense Force, to train against … just such a possibility as this. Reggie shook his head. It wouldn’t have worked. I was never cut out to be a soldier. He tried to think of other things, but a nagging voice in his mind kept telling him that he was rationalizing his failure to do something for his world—and for his family.

  After a time, it became easy to escape those thoughts. The Federation troops moved closer. Reggie could hear shouting, though he could not make out the words. People just two houses away—less than a quarter mile—were being rousted from their homes at gunpoint. A few minutes later,

  there were new fires, blazes he could see from their onset.

  “We’ll be in the next group.” Reggie stood and watched. He could see soldiers going from point to point, using flamethrowers and incendiary devices to start several fires in each house. Then Reggie went downstairs. He wanted to be with his family when the soldiers came for them.

  Ida and the children were gathered in the parlor. That had a window that gave them some view of the road going toward the center of Hawthorne. The twins were at either side of their mother, holding on to her with all of their strength. Al stood close as well, his fists clenched at his sides, his arms trembling with the effort.

  “They’re almost here, aren’t they?” Al asked when he noticed his father.

  Reggie nodded. “I could see them starting fires three houses down. It won’t be long before they get to us.”

  “Why?” Al asked.

  “I don’t have any idea.”

  “What do we do?” Ida asked. “Do we go outside, or wait for them to break in?”

  “I think we should be in plain sight,” Reggie said. “That might be safer. They won’t have to be nervous about an ambush.” He hadn’t heard any gunfire—except maybe once, early, a long way off—but he didn’t want to take chances. He had seen videos of soldiers at war, throwing grenades into buildings before they went in shooting. All he could do now was try to minimize the risk to his family.

  “Out front?” Ida asked.

  “Might as well. They must expect people to know what’s coming, expect people to be watching them.”

  “I packed a little more food. It’s on the kitchen table.”

  “Let’s get it and move out on the front lawn.” Reggie led the way. The rest of what they had to carry away with them was already away from the house, out at the rear of their property, near the path that Reggie and Eric had taken out to where they had cached things in the woods. There were packs for all of them, very light ones for the girls, somewhat heavier for Al and Ida, and the heaviest one for Reggie himself.

  The family floater was parked in the driveway by the courtyard gate. Reggie led his family through the gate and a little closer to the road. They could see the fires down the road. The smoke was heavy. The light breeze carrying it was hot.

  Fifteen minutes later, thirty soldiers marched down the road in two columns, rifles and other weapons carried at the ready. The soldiers were anonymous figures in camouflage battledress, expressions hidden by tinted helmet visors. No insignia of rank or unit were visible, only the crest of the Confederation of Human Worlds in camouflage colors on the sides of the helmets.

  An order stopped the soldiers just before they reached the
Bailey driveway. More orders sent smaller groups off to their next six houses, three on either side of the road. The Knowles house, just south of the Baileys’, was the last on the east side of the road to draw soldiers this time. One squad, five men, came a few steps up the driveway toward the Baileys. The leader raised the faceplate of his helmet.

  “You have five minutes to gather whatever you can carry and leave,” he said. The accent was unfamiliar, harsh to the ears of the Baileys.

  “Where do we go?” Reggie asked.

  “Away from town. Anywhere.”

  “Can we take our floater?”

  “No vehicles. You can take whatever you can carry, nothing else.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Al demanded, starting forward. His father grabbed his shoulder to stop him. “Why are you doing this to us?”

  The soldier stared at the boy for an instant but did not answer his question. He looked to Reggie again. “Five minutes. And don’t try to come back later. Any civilians found around here after today will be shot.” Then he lowered his visor and started giving hand signals to his men. He apparently gave no more thought to the civilians he was displacing.

  “Come on,” Reggie said, fighting to keep his voice calm. He kept a hand on his son’s shoulder, turning him, movinghim toward the side of the house. The others followed, staying close. At every step, Reggie feared that the soldier would yell for them to go the other way, away from where their other belongings were—those back near the rear of their property, and those that had been cached in the woods. But the only interest any of the soldiers seemed to take in the Baileys was to make certain that they did not go back inside their house.

  The Baileys moved away from their house as the soldiers moved into position around it. Seventy yards away, they could see the Knowles family also moving away from their house, carrying what they could.